Windsor Boys School,

Hamm, Germany

Originally a barracks called Argonner Kaserne on Soester Straße, Hamm, Nordrhein-Westfalen and built in 1937/38, the British took control and renamed it Brixton Camp. At first the camp housed German and Austrian POW's and then went on to be the base for the Polish 61st Tank Transporter Unit.

In 1953 Brixton Camp reopened as Windsor School which was a mixed boarding school and stayed that way until 1959 when it became the male only Windsor Boys School (WBS). The nearby Newcastle Barracks opened up as Windsor Girls School (WGS).In 1981 WBS became mixed again and then finally closed its gate in 1983.

All visitors please report to the Watchman

Remains of the Dining Block. (2020)

Photograph courtesy of Chris Brooking

After seeing images online showing the remains of Windsor Boys School / Windsor school in Hamm, like many others that went to the school between 1953 and 1983 there was a real disappointment that it won't be there anymore. I never really had the chance to go back to Hamm and have a look at the old buildings and always thought they would have been converted into apartments or something else. No chance of that and all that was left was this pile of debris from the Dining block.

I have a keen interest in 3D modelling so it was time to bring the school back to life and show the buildings and grounds as they would have been during that 30 year span.

Thanks to the kind and knowledgeable members on the Windsor Boys School FB group there were many old photographs and even a floor plan of the entire grounds to use for reference.

Windsor Boys School Hamm Virtual Tour

Created over two years the final virtual tour consists of 39 X 360 degree images of various locations throughout the school grounds. Included in the tour are popup image galleries displaying personal photographs from both pupils and teachers who have kindly allowed the photographs to be displayed outside the Facebook groups. A full list of the owners can be found on the tours Credits page

Windsor Boys School Hamm, Germany Virtual Tour

Swimming Pool

Dining Block

Woodwork, Metalwork and Gym

St Boniface Chapel and back field

Old Shooting Range

Old Stables Area

Project Update - 26 May, 2022

Project Update - February, 2022

Modelling and texturing are almost completed. Need to add more render friendly vegetation and the transport models.

I must admit I was a little over keen on the realism of the vegetation and as the greenery got larger and larger the computer got slower so I've pretty much deleted all the previous vegetation and replaced it with lower poly models so that my computer can work correctly and fewer crashes. Pretty disappointed but the lower poly models still look pretty good. There's no way to make the poplar tree's lower poly so that 9GB blender file has to be linked to.

Put together a gallery of the modeling which you can view below. These shots were taken while in Shader view so it's basically the models with shading and a little colour here and there so the computer doesn't grind to a halt while looking around. Note that there's no grass and weeds visible in shader mode.

Open in Gallery

December 2021

I put the main project on hold as I wanted to make a winter scene based on the this image I found online showing a sunset.

Working out the direction of the shot, it was either taken from the fire escape or one of the windows up in Block 5 which was Caernarvon so I went with the window scene and included items from 1979 / 1980.

You can view the full size version here and this one allows you to zoom in and out and listen to the recorded audio track of 'Sounds Like Sunday' on the BFBS Radio show.

View Full Size